I wanna go back

I wanna go back to 93,
Saturday evening – May 15th

Mick Byrne’s bar in Castlebar
just Carolyn and me
watching on a black and white portable  –
Niamh Kavanagh winning Eurovision
with In Your Eyes

Carolyn tipsy and so was I,
drinking rum chasers
along with ‘the black’
(twenty sips to the pint)
and rolling joints
with Zig-Zag papers

giggling crazy plans

it was left unsaid, but understood,
we’d have sex later in the van

Carolyn wore a Turkish hat
and had the look about her
of a startled faun

we were not in love
but we were in fun
feckin’ marvellous roistering fun

I wanna return to ninety-three
I wanna see Caz again
we were glad to be alive back then

Easter 1994

camping at the Cliffs of Moher,
the views were spectacular
the Twelve Bens of Connemara
to the tip of County Clare

Carolyn reckoned she saw Kerry
but that was out of sight to me

as she walked to the cliff edge
humming ‘om’ in time
with the rumbling-tumbling
ocean below,  I called,

‘mind the edge – it’s a long way down’
‘I won’t go over by mistake – can I trust you?’
‘you know you can’
‘you will betray me – it’s in your eyes’

she had my number,
I would cheat on her,
I would not want to,
but life is life
and I am weak 

next morning I found
her coat damp on the cliff top
and a scribbled note
flapping under a shoe,

“you’re good, but not good enough”

I wore her Turkish hat
for weeks in memory
mourning Caz,
but mostly
feeling sorry for me

over the years
I’ve glimpsed her,
often taking strangers’ arms
in city streets,

‘sorry, thought you were someone I used to know’

I wanna return to 94,
camping at the Cliffs of Moher
I wanna see Caz again
I was glad to be alive back then.